Devon Sherwood, the only black player among 47 players on the Duke lacrosse team last spring, has given an interview to ABC News. It’s clear he feels the charges are false and that he considers the 46 players his brothers. He also makes clear his affection for Mike Pressler, the former Duke lacrosse coach. But what got my attention was him saying he never felt different because of his skin color while on the lacrosse team. It was the media that chose to isolate him because of his race:
He said that, as the first player named in print, he also felt strangely isolated by his race, a feeling he said he never felt on the field or in the locker rooms.
“Devon Sherwood. … The lone black player,” he quoted an early newspaper article as referring to him.
“The ‘lone’ being the key word, as if I was in a corner in the locker room. Everybody else was 50 yards away from me. It was a very, very key word there — the ‘lone.’ Instead of saying the ‘sole’ black player, the ‘lone’ black player.”
